The House That Death Built Read online

  What's happening?

  "Just give me the numbers," said the sad-eyed man. "I'll key them in."

  Even the simple statement took too long to make its way through the veil of tears and terror that had dropped over James' gaze.

  "I'll do it for you," said the man.

  James finally nodded. "I'll try," he managed. "Hard to –"

  The gunman –

  (Rob? Didn't someone call him Rob?

  What's happening?)

  – slammed the gun down on Evan's shoulder again. This time James' son didn't cry out. Just curled in a bit on himself. Smaller, somehow less there.

  James felt the blow as though he had been the one under attack. He screamed. The sound barely made it out through a windpipe pinched shut by terror and pain felt on another's behalf. He barely registered the blood that still pumped from his leg, the pain centered there.

  He just saw Evan, drawing slowly into a fetal ball.

  "Stop screwing around!" shouted the gunman – Rob. He had his gun trained at James again, and James felt a strange relief at that fact – at least it wasn't being used on Evan. "If I don't have whatever's inside that safe in my hands in…" he checked his watch, "sixty seconds…."

  He gestured at Evan with his gun. And cocked back the hammer.

  "Dad," whispered Evan. And in that word, in three small letters, James heard every plea his son had ever uttered. In that single syllable he felt the weight of a life that depended on him as none other.

  Oddly, the moment reminded him of the first time he had held his son. Firstborn in his arms, hair still matted from the fluid he had slept in for nine months, new father still unsure if this was really so.

  Then the baby's eyes opened. Just a crack. Just a dark slit against a so-red face.

  He saw a glimmer. And knew. This was his to have, his to hold. A life to love, an existence to cherish.

  A son to protect.

  "It's okay, son," he said. "It'll be okay."

  He tried to make himself sound sure. Strong.

  He failed.

  He took in a breath.

  What's happening?

  Steady. Steady. Strong. They need you.

  "Come on, Pops. Time's a-wastin'."

  James did his best to ignore the harsh words, the sound of a man who wanted to kill him.

  He turned to the other man – Aaron. For a moment he considered pleading for help from the other man. Begging for him to switch sides and help instead of harm.

  But a single look convinced him that would never happen. The sad-eyed man didn't look like he wanted to be here. But he was here. And he was afraid of Rob. Not just because of the gun – there was more to it than that.

  There was no help here. Only James himself.

  He nodded. "Okay," he said – more as an attempt to calm himself than to notify the man at the safe that he was ready.

  But the sad-eyed man nodded. Sent a quick glance toward Evan as though to encourage the father to protect the son.

  "One," said James. Aaron entered the number. "Seven." Again, the beep of a key being triggered. No red lights. All good. "Seven."

  Beep. All good.

  What's happening what's happening WHAT'S HAPPENING?

  For a moment, panic welled. Reality and any semblance of control spun away from James' grasp. He fell into a fog. And heard himself say, "Eight," and realized he had slipped back into the past – saying the weight of that newborn baby.

  ("Eight pounds, Mr. Schaffer. Your son weighs eight pounds. And he's perfect.")

  Everything lengthened out. The time between him saying the number and Aaron actually hitting it seemed like enough space for a hundred families to grow old and die together. Enough time for generations to laugh, love, and die.

  But it wasn't enough for James to say what needed to be said.

  "No! Wait! Nine!"

  But even as he said it, he heard the beep. Then a deeper one. A click. A red light appeared on the LED.

  Something thunked within the safe. The sound of an immovable object sliding home with irresistible force.

  The three lights disappeared, replaced by a countdown timer: 12:00:00.

  Hours, minutes, seconds.

  Twelve hours before the safe could be opened.

  James rocked back on his knees. He moaned.

  Silence ruled for an instant. Then Rob spoke, rage barely contained behind a demon's grin. "I guess we always knew at least one of you was going to die," he said. "Turns out it's going to be even more."

  The sad-eyed man gasped. "Don't –"

  At the same time, Evan rolled over to his back. Looking up. Seeing what was coming.

  Seeing, and screaming, and then silent as Rob pulled the trigger.

  6

  Beth Schaffer heard the sound. She had never shot a gun. Never been to a range, never heard someone else shoot.

  It was so loud.

  The sound wasn't just noise, it was the growl of a creature hungry, rabid. The scream of something beyond good or evil. It was elemental. Pure force, without will.

  The sound hammered its way through the room. It would have bludgeoned her to her knees if she hadn't already been there. As it was, she curled over so far her nose nearly touched the floor.

  She turned her head.

  It was crazy. The final madness in a night where sanity fled screaming into the darkest of places. She should have looked away – that was what you did, right? When something so dangerous reared its head and roared its most terrible roar? You looked away, you looked anywhere but to its source.

  But she did look.

  And she saw.

  The body had already fallen to the floor. A long, limber form. Slim, but without any of the awkward gangliness that marked so many of his peers. The body of a person making a near-seamless transition from boy to man.

  But that transition was over. Stopped by the creature. The gun.

  No. Not the gun. The man behind it.

  Does it matter who did it?

  Evan was laying on his back on the closet floor. Eyes looking right at her. The brightness that had always been there dimmed slightly.

  Still alive. He can make it.

  A ragged red circle was on his chest. Growing as blood pulsed out.

  He coughed. More blood escaped his mouth. It leaped out like the tentacle of some awful creature that had been born even as her son – her baby boy – began to die. Then the tentacle fell, fell apart, splattered on the floor.

  Evan somehow saw her. Somehow understood what she was feeling. He smiled. Mouthed something.

  Beth shook her head. Didn't know why – what did it matter that she didn't understand what he was saying?

  What does anything matter?

  He mouthed it again. Again. And on the fourth repetition she understood.

  It's okay, Mom.

  Then the last lingering brightness dimmed. His eyes sagged. Not closed entirely, small crescents of white still visible.

  Gone.

  She saw it. Saw the moment her boy left a world too cruel to hold him.

  As she did, her sanity also left. But there was no transition from this awful place to another, better one. Instead it threw off the tethers of rational thought, spun out of control. An elemental creature just as dangerous in its own way as the thing that had ended her son.

  She screamed. Felt the carpet beneath her, and it wasn't like she was pushing herself away from it, but like it was falling away from her. Like the world itself fell away, withdrew from something too awful to touch.

  She threw herself at the nearest of the people who had brought this madness to her. It was the big man, the one who seemed the most evil of them all.

  No. Not the most evil. Just the most out of control.

  The one who killed Evan is the most evil. The men in the closet are the ones who will be destroyed.

  But this one first.

  The thoughts fired rapidly through her mind, taking no more time than her short flight allowed.

&nbs
p; Then the thoughts, the last vestiges of Beth Schaffer, fell away with the ground below. She simply was.

  She hit the big man. Didn't knock him down, but that didn't matter. Her hands were already hooked, but now curved still further, expensively-manicured nails extended into the razor claws of something cold and reptilian.

  She heard sobbing. Didn't know who it was –

  (Ashley. My girl. My only girl. Only child.)

  – and didn't care.

  She yanked up the man's mask with one hand. Slashed down with the other.

  He screamed and clapped a hand to his blooded face. Furrows led from his brow down to his cheek. Deep creases that instantly covered his face in blood.

  He shoved her away.

  Screaming, one hand to his face.

  The other raising something. Another beast. Another elemental that –

  BOOM.

  The creature screamed again. A roar slightly different in tone, but no different in power.

  Beth's head snapped back so hard she was certain her neck was broken. She had somehow found her way back to the floor. Face-up, staring at the textured ceiling. The nonsense patterns there drew together into a face. A boy.

  Evan.

  Something was wet behind her. Warm fluid that saturated her blond hair, crept down to her neck.

  She had a fleeting moment to realize she'd been shot in the head.

  Then darkness took her. The darkness of ultimate madness, followed quickly by a darkness far deeper.

  The face in the ceiling was the last thing she saw.

  7

  Rob watched the killing go down. Watched the woman grab onto Tommy's face like some kind of goddam leach. Watched her gash his face –

  (That's gonna leave a mark.)

  – then watched him toss her down and shoot her point-blank in the head.

  Rob was moving forward as it happened, nearly running into the bedroom and wondering how this had all gone to hell so fast. The deaths didn't bother him. Not like they had to clean up the place after they left. But…

  But the money! The jewels or whatever was in that safe!

  That stung. All this work, everything he'd done to get ready for the job. For nothing.

  Tommy finally quieted. He pulled the mask over his face. Then swung his gun to the little girl who was staring in open-mouthed shock at her mother's body.

  Tommy glanced at Rob. "Boss?" he said.

  Rob turned in a rage. James –

  (Bastard sonofabitch why couldn't you just get it right?)

  – had moved from his place beside the safe to a spot beside his boy. Cradling the teen's head in his lap, sobbing like a baby.

  Rob aimed his gun again.

  "Please," said Aaron. And Rob almost shot him. He'd been the one whose job it was to open the safe. He hadn't even bothered to watch Daddykins, but had actually let the man run to his kid. "You don't have to do this."

  "I didn't do it, Aaron. You did. Not because you screwed up with the safe, though. You killed all of them the moment you said my name."

  He saw it sink in. Saw Aaron replaying the moment, the fact that he'd called Rob by name in the closet. The fact that after that Rob had started calling everyone by name – because it didn't matter.

  Because from that instant, the family had to die.

  He shot the man beside his son. James fell across him, arms outstretched as though trying to protect the boy a few minutes too late.

  Rob turned back to the master bedroom fast enough to see the girl. Ashley. She bolted, running for the door that led into the hall and the darkness beyond. He couldn't tell if it was a calculated attempt to get away in the hubbub, or just the panic of someone whose conscious thought had been replaced by simple will to survive.

  Academic.

  Kayla turned away from her brother as the girl ran. Moving with languid calm, she brought her gun up. Pulled the trigger. A ragged hole appeared on the girl's back. Blood flew in a wide spatter against the doorframe she had been running for.

  The girl dropped.

  Rob sighed.

  Fubar.

  He looked back at Aaron. The idiot hadn't moved. Just staring at the two bodies in the closet and very obviously not looking at Rob. Probably worried about what Rob would do.

  For a moment Rob thought of making Aaron's fears come true. Not killing him – that would be too easy.

  There were other, worse things the other man was worried about.

  Reign it in, Rob. You might need him again.

  He turned to Tommy and Kayla.

  "All right," he said. "Let's make sure we're not tied to this place."

  8

  This is what the house looks like.

  This is the house where death has come to call.

  It is nice – very nice. It is white, with a porch, with columns supporting ornate rooftops. Windows like blind eyes.

  And then one of the eyes seems to wink.

  There is a glimmer, as though the house has awakened. Then the glimmer can be seen from another eye. Another. Brighter and brighter, and then one of the eyes shatters outward and flames lick up the white wall, carving a charred black scar from window to roof.

  More windows light. More eyes shatter. More white blackens.

  Four shadows steal out of the back door. Illuminated by the brightness behind them, but fleeing quickly to the shadowed portion of the grounds.

  One shadow stops at the edge of the flickering light. It turns to look at the house that has stood for so long and now must fall. The shadow leans toward the house, as though considering a return.

  Then, at last, it turns and joins the other wraiths as they turn and flee over the wall and into the night.

  TWO:

  ... that killed

  the cats ...

  She fell one day. Everyone falls, but this was strange because she didn't stumble, she didn't trip. They were in the park, they were standing still while they tossed breadcrumbs to the birds.

  She just teetered for a moment, tipped, and spent an impossible moment hanging in the air before she simply crumpled. He tried to catch her, but unlike in movies and books, catching a body that has gone limp without any warning is simply impossible.

  It seemed like it must be nothing. She was already getting back to her feet in the time it took to realize anything was happening. She even said that: "I'm sure it's nothing."

  But a few days later, blood streamed from her nose and would not stop, and when they went to the hospital, doctors with wan faces and sad eyes said it was something, yes, definitely something.

  The illness was usually fatal, they said. And he heard not "bad prognosis," but "she's going to die." And on the heels of that, "And you'll die, too," because what life is there when the light fades. When a sun breathes its last and snuffs out, the planets in its orbit do not continue to spin as they always have. They spiral into the darkness and are ended themselves.

  "Bad prognosis" – "she's going to die."

  Then they said, "some small chance," and that was worse. Because he knew that meant "only the rich need apply."

  He had always thought himself rich. Always believed he had enough and too much of all the things that really mattered. But now he found that hospitals would not accept an embrace as proof of success, or tender feelings as tender of the legal sort.

  She faded. Faded.

  Nearly gone.

  He waited beside her bed. A second-rate bed, in a third-rate room with two other people who were also dying, in a fourth-rate hospital that was all he could afford.

  Another man came in the room.

  "There may be a way," he said.

  9

  Rob needed a score like other people need oxygen.

  It had been too many years, too many disappointments, too many reaffirmations of the universe's apparent need to screw him over.

  His dad had been a writer. A talentless good-for-nothing who somehow managed to sell just enough books that the dumbass could continue to delude himself that
someday he might just make it. Just enough books to keep the family balanced on the knife-edge of destitution. Just.

  One day he took Rob aside and gave him one of his periodic "man to man" talks. Spewing life lessons that he'd obviously read about in some glossy magazine while waiting to cash in his food stamps at the super market.

  "Remember, son: no matter what you do in life, you must run yourself like a business. The difference between me and most people trying to make it in such a difficult industry is that I know this fact. I know I'm not just an 'artist,' I'm a businessman. I create a product for value, and every transaction I enter into has to create net value for me, or else it's not worth pursuing."

  Rob had nodded. Only eight years old at the time, but he was already old enough to know that if his father had actually followed that advice he probably wouldn't have had to settle for second-hand toys from the Salvation Army as Christmas presents.

  "Yes, dad," he said. Shane Johnson kept on word-vomiting until Rob settled into a half-conscious series of nods interspersed with a periodic "uh-huh" designed mostly to keep himself from slipping completely into a coma.

  Rob's father kept at it like that until the day he died. Dispensing wisdom he either didn't follow himself or – worse – that made so little sense it was a struggle to keep from strangling the old fart. Shane died the worst thing possible: a has-been who never quite was.

  Still, he had given that one bit of good advice. Rob treated himself like a business, and that was one of the things that had always distinguished him from so many other thieves. Every time he scored, Kayla and Tommy went out and blew the money within a month. Aaron spent it on his old lady, which made him even stupider than Kayla and Tommy combined.

  But Rob….

  Rob saved. He invested in his future. He looked to step up, a bit at a time. Conservative growth was the safest, best bet for long-term financial gain. He read that once in a Maxim, and that shit resounded.

  Still, no matter how careful you were, no matter how cautious in your growth and conscientious in your business choices – even if that business involved separating people from their possessions – nothing could stop the grim reality of bad luck.